This weekend was the Twin Cities Gay Pride Celebration - people around here say it is the second largest in the nation. For me it is always a remembrance of how much has occurred since Stonewall, and the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Mattachine Society. Our world as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer is much different than in the early days of organizing for our civil rights. Having come out in 1975, and moved to Madison, WI (it had the largest density zipcode of lesbians in the United States) where I was in thick of lesbian rights, equal opportunity, EEOC, Affirmative Action, Women's Studies, Lysistrata, and an amazing number of lesbian. I lived in the arms of lesbian and women's culture. It was the extension of my wildly left political work in the late 60's and a way back to the political as personal when I realized that I was a lesbian, and saw that as a choice, and as a significant part of who I was.
So as I walked through the rows of vendors, (gay shopping to the max!) - I found myself thinking about legal equality, acceptance, assimilation. What really brings us all together under the GLBT banner? Women loving women, men loving men, some doing both. Each one of us a story about how it is that we found our way to love, began to make and find a part of community, to be bold in our creativity and create and acknowledge a culture. Then there is the political - some satisfied with the political as it is, just give us gay rights, others of us, seeing our connection with a much larger political need that honors and protects and defends all who are disenfranchised, exploited, made to be less than.
So I didn't much like the rows of shopping, but I had some good fun at the Loring Stage listening to women who love women singing to everyone who was out today to Celebrate Pride.
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